Fighting talk from AstraZeneca boss as results announced

AstraZeneca turned over $6.45 billion in the second quarter, up 4%, making half year sales 3% higher than the previous year.

The company, which is due to move its HQ to Cambridge by 2016, says it is making significant progress towards achieving scientific leadership, with 14 projects in late stage clinical trials - that’s eight more than a year ago.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive, said: “We have made significant progress in the first half of the year, with visible momentum across our cardiovascular, diabetes and respiratory franchises as well as strong growth in the emerging markets.” And this despite having the destraction of the Pfizer bid.

Mr Soriot added that AZ’s strong performance meant full year results were likely to be better than forecast. In addition, as reported yesterday in the News online, AZ has just bought respiratory diseases company, Almirall, which will further boost business.

“We now have one of the most exciting pipelines in the industry with 14 assets in late stage development,” he said. “Over recent weeks we have presented compelling data that demonstrates our potential to significantly advance the way patients are treated, including in immuno-oncology (understanding how cancer evades the immune system). The quality of transformation we are seeing across all core areas of our business further underpins our confidence in our longer term prospects.”